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* Best-selling adventure travel text in the 1850s and still a fascinating -- and quaintly funny -- read
* Thoroughly modern re-packaging of Sir Francis Galton's seminal work
* Galton was a cousin of Charles Darwin

"Carrion is not noxious to starving men." This is one of the countless potentially useful bits of information contained within Sir Francis Galton's fascinating but unwieldy (366 pages) The Art of Travel, now available in this attractive 124-pages package full of period illustrations. First published in 1855, the book became a bible of self-sufficiency for a host of now famous explorers including Sir Richard Burton. Galton's work is now available in a condensed edition that highlights the amusing and the practical while losing extraneous material and minutia such as how many fleabites he endured on one adventure and how many bush ticks bit him on another.

The Art of Travel recounts Galton's adventures as one of the first Europeans to explore the interior of southwestern Africa. His quaint advice on interacting with "savages," handling elephants, and stopping asses from braying will make you laugh. But you'll want to take notes on his instructions on how to find water in the desert, navigate by the stars, or follow tracks in the dark.